distinct remembrance, that the suggestion thus for the first time made to
me, that I knew more than other youths who were considered well educated,
was to me a piece of information, to which, as to all other things which
my father told me, I gave implicit credence, but which did not at all
impress me as a personal matter. I felt no disposition to glorify myself
upon the circumstance that there were other persons who did not know what
I knew; nor had I ever flattered myself that my acquirements, whatever
they might be, were any merit of mine: but, now when my attention was
called to the subject, I felt that what my father had said respecting my
peculiar advantages was exactly the truth and common sense of the matter,
and it fixed my opinion and feeling from that time forward.




CHAPTER II

MORAL INFLUENCES IN EARLY YOUTH. MY FATHER'S CHARACTER AND OPINIONS


In my education, as in that of everyone, the moral influences, which
are so much more important than all others, are also the most
complicated, and the most difficult to specify with any approach to
completeness. Without attempting the hopeless task of detailing the
circumstances by which, in this respect, my early character may have
been shaped, I shall confine myself to a few leading points, which
form an indispensable part of any true account of my education.

I was brought up from the first without any religious belief, in the
ordinary acceptation of the term. My father, educated in the creed of